The Gaddafi regime buried its dead yesterday, a moment when ordinary Libyans
came face to face with what it means to confront world opinion and western
power.

The funerals were, in part, arranged as a propaganda exercise. The arrival of Western journalists, bused in by regime minders, was delayed until a demonstration by youths wearing green bandannas could be marshalled outside Tripoli's Martyrs' Cemetery, a strip overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

But there could be no purpose to deceive in the 23 freshly dug graves awaiting the bodies of soldiers killed when a missile struck what was believed to be an anti–aircraft battery in the suburb of Tajoura.

The regime and its television stations had stressed all day long that many, if not most, of the 64 Libyans killed overnight were civilians, though among that number were soldiers seen alongside burned out tanks on the road west of Benghazi.

Among those being buried yesterday were, according to the mourners, a threemonth–old baby and a 29–year–old shopkeeper. But the military section of the cemetery, with two long rows of breeze block–lined holes surrounded by the praying comrades of the dead, demonstrated the fearsome accuracy of Western firepower as much as the random cruelty of aerial bombardment.

Col Gaddafi last night staged a show of defiance in Tripoli as anti–aircraft batteries opened fire from three locations. With most of the capital in lockdown, the heavy barrages of tracer fire burst across the night sky. Orange outgoing rounds were fired from his Bab al–Azizia compound after plumes of smoke rose following the dull crump of a missile strike.

Repeated bursts were fired from a fixed location on the edge of Tripoli harbour. A pick–up truck carrying an anti–aircraft gun also fired across the harbour, and a grenade was fired near a five–star hotel.

Although coalition commanders have claimed that Col Gaddafi's air defences had been substantially destroyed, some emplacements clearly remained active.

Earlier yesterday state television showed footage of those injured in the previous night's air strikes being treated in hospitals, but not of the places that had been struck. This suggested both that military targets were successfully hit – if schools or hospitals had been "collateral damage" surely journalists would have been taken to see them – and that the regime did not have the will or wherewithal to engage in extreme deception.

At the Martyrs' Cemetery, protests came from the families of some of the civilian casualties, though the stories told about them could not be verified and were sometimes contradictory.

Three–month–old Siham Tabib had been at home near the Tajoura base when a bomb fell, said Mohammed Salim Tabib, her uncle.

Siham's twin sister, Bushara, was unharmed, said a cousin, Ibrahim Dao, 28, who wept angrily as he berated journalists.

"This was started by the media," he said. "They brought pictures of Iraq and showed them and said they were from Benghazi."

He said he knew journalists would say the funeral was a show. "Do you think we killed her, this baby, so we could show this to you?" he asked.

On a bluff overlooking the sea, a cousin of Ramadan Abdulsalam Ashurgani said the 29 year–old had been driving home in the middle of the night after taking his daughter to hospital when his car was hit as he drove past the base. Others gave different versions.

Some men screamed almost uncontrollably.

Their anger seemed genuine, though it was based largely on the version of events shown by state television, in which the army is valiantly rescuing eastern cities from a handful of foreignarmed al–Qaeda–linked criminal gangs. That version does not show, and refuses to believe, that Col Gaddafi reneged on his promise of a ceasefire, continuing to attack Benghazi on Saturday and, yesterday, driving tanks into the heart of Misurata, Libya's third city, which is still in rebel hands.

Residents of Tripoli were braced themselves for fresh air strikes last night. The city was quieter than on previous days, as if the reality of what was happening was only just striking home.

Some people were sceptical, some onlookers quietly denounced the funerals and all else as lies. But there was no sign that many were prepared to rise up and overthrow their leader from within.

"I'm in my last year studying to be a doctor, but I'm stopping and going to pick up my automatic gun," said Mohammed Hamad, 25. "You have only one Bin Laden [the founder of al–Qaeda] today. Now, you will have seven million Bin Ladens."